


rhythm and melody

by yunmin



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationship, Cultural Introduction, Dancing, Gen, M/M, Prompt Fill, Romance or Friendship you decide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 06:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5817823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunmin/pseuds/yunmin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the Resistance’s new temporary base on Malastare, Poe starts to realise that there are many, many things that Finn has missed out on. Including (in no particular order): decent food, history, fiction, reality television, music and dancing. Poe seeks to remedy all this urgently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rhythm and melody

**Author's Note:**

> written for a prompt on [tumblr](http://drinkupthesunrise.tumblr.com/post/137972058401/poefinn-and-slow-dancing), which was "poe/finn and slow dancing," which, rather predictably at this point, got WAY out of hand and I ended up with 2.2k of nonsense. I have other plotty more important things to be working on, self.

On the Resistance’s new temporary base on Malastare, Poe starts to realise that there are many, many things that Finn has missed out on.

The news that the First Order are utter bastards isn’t exactly, well, news. There’s a reason that BB-8 calls them _Designation: First Order Assholes_ after all. A reason why General Organa has been able to call so many people to her side to fight them. They’re evil. And it isn’t exactly a surprise that they didn’t give the Stormtroopers access to a whole hell of a lot. But still. The level of depravity required to keep so much from them shocks Poe.

He probably wouldn’t make a very good evil dictator, because he thinks if you want people on your side you be nice to them. Give them basic necessities – food that actually tastes like food, leisure activities and a basic bit of culture, the opportunity to have some autonomy in their personal lives so they don’t feel the need to strike out when taking orders. Finn got none of that. He reacts to hospital food (intentionally blander than usual because Kalonia has her suspicions) as if it’s good. It might be the best thing he’s ever eaten, and that just isn’t right.

Word of this quickly gets out. Before long, Finn has half the resistance popping into his medical room – those who dare to risk the wrath of Kalonia, anyway – with their favourite food stuffs. Poe doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or be incensed when he catches sight of Finn’s poor face, bewildered at the amount of options that now lie before him. “It’s okay,” Poe says, trying to imagine what it must be like and failing utterly. “You don’t have to like all of it. And it’s okay if you do.” Finn tilts his head. “Kriff, I’m shit at this. How about we tuck in?”

Finn, luckily, soon develops strong opinions about what he likes and what he doesn’t, which is a relief. Poe had already dictated the early terms of Finn’s freedom, giving him a name; to have to decide anything else for him would be too much like intruding on his autonomy for Poe’s liking.

Then there is the lack of culture. The First Order told them stories, of course, but they were delivered in a clinical way – tales that showed the inefficiency of the Empire and why they had fallen to the Rebel Alliance. Finn has a decent grasp of historical events as a result of this, but it’s all slightly skewed. General Organa offers him remedial history lessons, pulling in as many people as she can to give differing views. Though, this being the Resistance, Finn isn’t going to get an unbiased account here either. Officer Connix, at barely twenty, still has a reasonable grasp of the history currently being taught in Republic Schools, and gets her parents to ship her out copies of her old notes. Finn takes it all with a serious look on his face, and then horror as he realises how wrong the First Order got, well, almost everything.

The pilots delight in having someone new to share their cultural obsessions with. Pava has a weakness for the most ridiculous torrid fantasy novels, whilst Wexley is strangely addicted to the Galaxy’s worse soap opera. Finn takes to them easily enough, though there is initially confusion about what in them is real and what is fiction. That only gets worse when Karé Kun shows back up, armed with a series of intricate historical novels. Poe’s read them before and even he has trouble remembering that the history that they paint isn’t real; it just seems so much more plausible than what actually happened. But Karé shows something that’s rare for her, and that is patience, and she talks Finn through what is fiction, what is embellished, what is credible theory and what is historical fact.

Watching Finn find joy in these new things is incredible. The way his eyes light up in surprise, or his face screw up in confusion; it’s impossible to think that someone would have kept these things from him.

The biggest revelation, however, is not choice or books or history or television, but _music_.

For Poe, a life without music is incomprehensible. He grew up with soft lullabies, with riotious victory songs, with intricate folk. The colonists who settled on Yavin 4 brought much in the way of music with them, and Poe was surrounded by it throughout his youth. There is nothing else like it.

Poe thinks nothing of humming absent-mindedly under his breath whilst he works. Black One is in need of some tune ups, and BB-8 is quite happy to assist. Both in the work itself, and providing a backing beat to the song Poe’s busy creating, graduating from humming to singing, soft words of a folk song learnt at his grandfather’s knee. But for Finn, who comes looking for him and ends up standing at the doors to the X-wing hangar bay, it is a revelation.

“What was that?” he asks, when Poe stops the song. There are more verses, but he can’t remember them and doesn’t feel like making them up.

“Huh?” Poe turns, and sees wide eyes and rapt attention and figures that whatever Finn is asking about, it probably isn’t the details of the engineering maintenence on the X-wing. “Oh, the song?” His brain suddenly kicks into gear. “Music. Old folk song from Yavin 4. Oh kriff, please don’t tell me we forgot to tell you what music was. You know about music, right?”

“Yes,” Finn says, but he seems uncertain. “The First Order had music. It just never sounded like that.”

“What did it sound like?” Poe drops his spanner, genuinely curious.

“It was all propaganda, drums, chanting—” Finn says, in the way of a man who doesn’t really have the vocabulary to describe his experiences. “They used to play it over the intercoms. Occasionally we’d be expected to join in. Victory to them, death and defeat to their enemies; that sort of thing.”

The exact opposite to what he just heard coming out of Poe’s mouth, in short.

“Yeah, buddy, there’s a lot more to music than that,” Poe says. BB-8 beeps, a message saying that these are repairs that need to be done and Friend-Poe needs to focus. “Hey, look, come to my quarters after dinner, I’ll play you a bunch.”

Finn smiles, and Poe returns to work, mentally plotting a playlist in his head of all the songs he wants to share.

.

In the mess news that Finn hasn’t been exposed to a whole lot of music gets out fast and they spend their time eating inundated with suggestions. Finn sits and nods along, as people sing and hum him excerpts. Poe files away those that he seems to like, and anything else interesting, sure that he’ll probably like the actual versions better than the pilots garbled renditions.

They beat a hasty retreat when they’re done, with BB-8 chirping as he follows, and Finn swears under his breath (yet again) that he’s going to get droid speak sorted at some point. Poe laughs, throwing an arm freely around Finn’s shoulders. His quarters aren’t far, and it doesn’t take them long to get settled, comfy on the floor with the pillows pulled off Poe’s bed.

BB-8 starts the playlist. Poe’s chosen to start with an instrumental piece, from Naboo – one of the greats, a piece of majesty composed in tribute to one of the great Naboo Queens. Finn’s face is rapt as he listens, to the swelling rhythm and melody. Poe tells him a little bit about the history, and is glad he’s chosen this one to start with, a display of the power of music. As the tale ends, and the music moves from a celebration to a tragedy. “What happened to her?” Finn asks, his eyes a little wet.

“She died,” Poe says. “At the end of the Old Republic.”

After that, there is variety; an old folk ditty, pop from the inner rim, jazz of the likes that is played in smuggler’s dens. Some of it is sung in basic, others not. Poe is aware that his own musical taste is not particularly wide; he likes what he likes, and that is the music he was raised on. So there might be more gentle folk, sweet voices singing over mandolins and drum beats than there really should be in there, but Poe has to listen to everything as well. He’s going to include what he enjoys.

Finn seems to like it all. His favourites, as far as Poe can tell, are the soaring orchestral pieces that are attempts to capture all of time and space within the strains of a half-dozen minutes, and the modern inner-rim pop. One of those is currently playing, and Finn is bopping his head along to its infectious beat.

“What’s it all for?” Finn asks, when the song changes, to something slower. “All the music. What do you do with?”

Poe crooks his head. “It depends on the piece. Some of it’s ceremonial – like the first piece we heard. This song, the one that’s on now, we tend to sing it at Resistance Wakes. It’s a tradition passed down from the days of the Rebel Alliance. A lot of the more upbeat stuff, people tend to listen to that for fun. They play music in the background at lots of places – you were at Maz’s right? She had a band playing, I bet.”

Finn nods. “Wasn’t really concentrating on that at the time though.”

Poe chuckles. “Probably not. But yeah, a lot of bars and clubs and stuff play music. People dance to it sometimes.”

“Dance?”

“Tell me that they have dance in the First Order. Please. Tell me you guys had to dance in those uniforms, under the guise of flexibility or co-ordination or something.”

“Nope,” Finn responds. “There were certain patterns we were supposed to learn to swing riot batons in, but I think that’s as close as we got.”

“Remind me to pitch that to Captain Phasma next time we run into her,” Poe jokes. Then he’s leaning across, taking Finn’s hands in his, and pulling him to his feet. “Come on, up. Now, I’m not much for the whole history of dance, or anything complicated – Snap watches this dance show, where they pair celebrities with professional dancers, they keep trying to get the General on it, they do some fancy stuff on there – but I can manage the basics.”

BB-8 switches the music to something slower, with a clear beat and no lyrics. Slow enough that they can stumble through some basic steps. Poe takes one of Finn’s hands and lifts it to his shoulder. “Your hand goes there. Usually the taller person leads.” Which would be Finn, who has about an inch on Poe. “But for the point of this exercise, I’ll do it.” Poe places his hand on Finn’s back, and raises their clasped hands. “Okay, I’m going to step forward, you step back.”

Finn manages that without any problem. “And again,” Poe says, using his weight to drive Finn the direction he wants. “And feet together. Then I go back, and again, then feet together. That’s a basic box step.” Utterly useless for any sort of modern practicalities, but Poe has fond memories of his grandfather breaking out a mandolin and watching his parents sway together, of being young and standing on his father’s feet to be twirled around, and Finn deserves that sort of memory too.

They do it again, and Finn stares at his feet and almost trips them up a couple of times. “Don’t overthink it. You can’t do it wrong. And hey, if that’s too complicated, a lot of people’s idea of dancing is to just stand and sway these days.” Finn seems determined to do this though, so Poe indulges him. It doesn’t take that long for him to get the hang of it, and for BB-8 to pick a faster piece of music, forcing Finn to let go of thinking about it and let instinct take over. Poe takes him round in circles, spins him under his arm, and watches as Finn smiles, tapping his foot in time with the beat of the song.

Poe expects BB-8 to play another fast song, something they can do something ridiculous too, but the opening strains of something slow and mournful start playing. Finn instantly slows and moves closer, and Poe stops. What on earth was his little droid thinking, playing the _Hymn to Alderaan_? But Finn leans in, and Poe continues his steps, though they are soft and barely more than a sway from side to side. It’s not a surprise when Finn drops his head onto Poe’s shoulder. “I get it,” he whispers, breath hot and ticklish against Poe’s skin. “Why you guys like this sort of stuff. It makes you feel.”

“Yeah,” Poe agrees, because Finn’s hit it in one and there isn’t much more to be said. No wonder why the First Order kept it from them. Emotions weren’t something Stormtroopers were supposed to have, even though by all of Finn’s descriptions they had them anyway. So he just holds Finn’s hand and takes the man’s weight and sways along with the song, and is immensely glad that Finn is now in a place where he can enjoy independent thought and emotions and feel things. That, after all, is the joy of life.

**Author's Note:**

> some asides:  
> \- bb-8's speech patterns shamelessly ripped from [the coat thief](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5460125) which everyone's read at this point, yes??  
> \- do I seriously think the star wars verse has strictly come dancing / dancing with the stars? no but imagine how hilarious it would be if it did. now imagine if they got C-3PO to go on it. yes you can all thank me later.


End file.
